A footnote to Election 2007

Now that An Taoiseach (the Prime Minister) has put us out of our misery and finally called the long-awaited general election, all Bills currently pending will fall with the outgoing DÃ¡il (Lower House). Of those of particular interest to this blog, this means that the Defamation Bill, 2006 (Department of Justice | Oireachtas (pdf)) and the Privacy Bill, 2006 (Department of Justice | Oireachtas (pdf)) now both fall too, and their fate will have to await the pleasure of the incoming government in the next DÃ¡il.

The fate of the Defamation Bill, in particular, raises an interesting question for the press industry. The Bill provided for the recognition of a Press Council; the press industry has advanced with the establishment of an Office of the Press Ombudsman and the Press Council of Ireland in parallel with the passage of the Bill through the Houses of the Oireachtas (Parliament); and they will now have to decide whether to continue with this process now that the Bill has fallen. They could of course keep their powder dry until after the election, in the hope that the incoming government revives the Bill, and then press on with the formation of the Ombudsman and Council. But it would be a better indication of their bona fides in this matter if they carried on regardless, and established the Press Council before the next Dáil sits. Indeed, having done so, it would then give them the credibility to call for the Defamation Bill to be revived by the incoming government!

No no no, the Comreg bill passed all stages and is about to get its SI to implement (disgraceful, in fact – they didn’t even discuss half the amendments, including stuff I had looked for). By the way, I have finally received my pile of FoI info on the lobbying for/against the Bill – but haven’t got a chance to go through it in detail.

Incidentally on tender etc the Minister still holds all powers until he’s replaced – so there’s no problem there.

Ok, thanks to you both for all of that. The Oireachtas website, which is rich in content but badly structured and practically unsearchable, misled me. Apologies. But, of course, this kind of conversation is what comments are for. Now, to go peel the egg from my face …

Recent tweets

Blogroll (or, really, a non-blogroll)

What I'd like for here is a simple widget that takes the list of feeds from my existing RSS reader and displays it here as a blogroll. Nothing fancy. I'd love a recommendation, if you have one.

I had built a blogroll here on my Google Reader RSS subscriptions. Google Reader produced a line of html for each RSS subscription category, each of which I pasted here. So I had a list of my subscriptions as my blogroll, organised by category, which updated whenever I edited Google Reader. Easy peasy. However, with the sad and unnecessary demise of that product, so also went this blogroll. Please take a moment to mourn Google Reader. If there's an RSS reader which provides a line of html for the list of subscriptions, or for each RSS subscription category as Google Reader did, I'd happily use that. So, as I've already begged, I'd love a recommendation, if you have one.

Meanwhile, please bear with me until I find a new RSS+Blogroll solution